spelunking
We had a relatively slow start to the day today. We all rose as usual for breakfast but instead of gearing up for a day of snorkeling we buckled down and got to work on some figure analyses and our project proposals. After a pretty productive morning we hit the cafeteria for lunch and soon after started our journey to the highest point on San Salvador, the lighthouse.
The lighthouse was a quick a walk from the road where we parked the truck and we could already see more of the island landscape before even climbing up the stairs to the top. Half the group went up the precarious set of stairs/ladders to the top to take in the full view. From our high vantage point we could see more of the island than we ever had before (with the exception of flying in) and witnessed the multitude of hyper saline lakes that are in the interior of the island. Most of expected the light in the lighthouse to be a grand fixture but it turns out it was just a large florescent bulb magnified by a complex mirror array. We soon made our way down back to ground level to take some "sassy" pictures in from of the aesthetic lighthouse door.
After our lighthouse adventure we headed through a gap in a nearby fence to journey through the interior jungle of San Salvador. The mild hike took only about ten minutes until we reached our highly anticipated destination, a large hole in the ground with a ladder leading down into it. We each took turns descending into the muggy, dark depths of the cavern, smiles all around.
Smiles quickly turned into sweat as there was little to no airflow within the confines of the cavern. We all fitted ourselves with dive lights, headlamps, a guiding string and our swimwear to brave brave the darkness of the unknown. Some of us witnessed bats on our way to a larger opening in the cave where we turned off all our lights and attempted to have a moment of complete silence to experience the complete darkness. All attempts to do so ended with unsolicited laughter and eventually a group photo.
After getting lost and scaring each other on the way out, we finally escaped the cave and made our way back to the truck. When we got back to the station we all took a nice long cold shower to wash away all the bat poop.
-Kenzie, Drew
The lighthouse was a quick a walk from the road where we parked the truck and we could already see more of the island landscape before even climbing up the stairs to the top. Half the group went up the precarious set of stairs/ladders to the top to take in the full view. From our high vantage point we could see more of the island than we ever had before (with the exception of flying in) and witnessed the multitude of hyper saline lakes that are in the interior of the island. Most of expected the light in the lighthouse to be a grand fixture but it turns out it was just a large florescent bulb magnified by a complex mirror array. We soon made our way down back to ground level to take some "sassy" pictures in from of the aesthetic lighthouse door.
After our lighthouse adventure we headed through a gap in a nearby fence to journey through the interior jungle of San Salvador. The mild hike took only about ten minutes until we reached our highly anticipated destination, a large hole in the ground with a ladder leading down into it. We each took turns descending into the muggy, dark depths of the cavern, smiles all around.
Smiles quickly turned into sweat as there was little to no airflow within the confines of the cavern. We all fitted ourselves with dive lights, headlamps, a guiding string and our swimwear to brave brave the darkness of the unknown. Some of us witnessed bats on our way to a larger opening in the cave where we turned off all our lights and attempted to have a moment of complete silence to experience the complete darkness. All attempts to do so ended with unsolicited laughter and eventually a group photo.
-Kenzie, Drew
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